Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/21

 11 S. I. JAN. 1, 1910.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

13

be written by an American. In the Intro- duction to ' Un Hiver a Paris * we read :

" J'ais traduit le present livre d'un recit tres exact et tres-veridique qui nous est venu du pays de Cooper et de Washington-Irving . . . . Je vous dirai peu de choses de 1'ecrivain original, car il a mis dans son voyage beaucoup de sa bonne humeur, de son esprit, de sa bienveillance naturelle. II eta it jeune encore lorsqu'il vint & Paris.... II 6tait arrive^ a Paris un Parisien 6vapore, tout dispose aux plus vives folies ; il en sortit un grave Am6ricain, tout prepare aux calmes et tran- quilles honneurs que la mere patrie tient en r6- serve pour les fils de sa predilection."

In the " English Translator's Introduction " to Longman's ' The American in Paris l we are told :

" In presenting this volume to the public, the English translator feels that some explanation is necessary ; inasmuch as the obvious course would have been, to use the American manuscript referred to, in the French translator's intro- duction, instead of re-tranflating the work. The manuscript, however, the publishers could not obtain, and they were therefore compelled either to have a re-translation, or to look elsewhere for a description of Paris, but the merit of this account was such, that they determined, at once, to adopt the former alternative .... In order to give the full effect, to the very clever and amusing, but, at the same time, very peculiar style, of M. Jules Janin, the English translator has some- times been compelled to use expressions, which may be considered foreign to the genius of the language, and to employ terms, which would not have-been chosen in an original work, but which were necessary to convey the full meaning of this very talented writer, ivho disdains to think by rule."

The Preface to ' L'te a Paris' begins, " Voici encore notre Americain de 1'an passe n ; and speaks of the author as " un compatriote de Franklin " ; while on p. 3 we read : " Mais qu'importe ? j'ai pour me consoler les vers de mon compatriote le poete Wordsworth, Long Fellow : sweet April ! " If Henry Wads worth Longfellow ever saw this book, he must have been amused at the French printer's version of his name.

My guess is that the American authorship is merely a ruse on the part of Janin. Is it known for certain ? ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

BETUBIUM (10 S. xii. 389). ! think there cannot be any doubt that the name Betubium in Thomson's * Seasons * (' Autumn,' 893) is a ghost-word. It is not a misprint. Betubium appears in many of the editions of ' The Seasons l which I have examined. In the edition of " The Aldine Poets" (1862) the word is explained in a foot-note as the name of " a promontory in Scotland, now called the Cape of St. Andrew."

But no such name as Betubium is to be found in the works of the ancient geographers. The word intended is doubtless Berubium, which occurs in Smith's * Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography,* on the authority of Ptolemy, and is supposed by Dr. R. G, Latham to be Noss Head on the north-west coast of Scotland. In Prof. C. H. Pearson's ' Historical Maps of England ' (2nd ed. p. 13) " Berubion Prom.' ? is mentioned, with three conjectures as to identification, viz., Arde Head (so Camden), Duncansby Head (so Horsley), and Noss Head (so ' Mon. Brit.').

It may perhaps be interesting to give the forms in Ptolemy as they appear on p. 88 of Miiller's splendid edition (1883). Muller prints in his text " Qvtpovtiiovfi a/cpor, Verubium promontorium," but some MSS. have BepovftiovYj. A note says : " Hodie the Noss prope Wick oppidum."

It would be interesting from a literary point of view to ask where the poet had met with this rare Ptolemaic name for his " highest peak "- o'er which " the north-in- flated tempest foams." It is not likely that Thomson was a student of Ptolemy. I sup- pose he must have found the word in Gibson's edition of Camden, where mention is made of the three promontories, viz., " Berubium, now Urdehead. . . .Virvedrum, now Dunsby, otherwise Duncans-bay ; . . . . and Orcas, now Howburn' 1 (ed. 1753, p. 1280). A. L. MAYHEW.

21, Norham Road, Oxford.

There is apparently a misprint in the form of the name Betubium that has been copied in successive issues of ' The Seasons.' This is corrected in Longman's edition, dated 1847, where the line reads :

O'er Orcas' or Berubium's highest peaks.

These are names of two extremities on the northern face of the Scottish mainland, and are latinized forms of the promontories mentioned in Ptolemy's geography of Britain. Ptolemy's " Tarvidium and Orcas >l are identified with Cape Wrath and Fair Aird Head on the one hand ; and his "Promon- tory Berubium" (Bcpov/ifiof/z aKpoi/) is iden- tified with Duncansbay Head on the other.

The poet, after describing " the naked melancholy isles," has turned to the main- land, where " a while the muse n passes Caledonia itself in romantic view from the tributary Jed

To where the north-inflated tempest foams O'er Orcas' or Berubium's highest peak ;

or, in other words, from the Tweed to the Pentland Frith. R. OLIVER HESLOP.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.